


Necessary Luxuries

by VeritySilvers



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Perc'ahlia Festival of Happiness, Ranged Combatants FTW, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 09:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8139056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeritySilvers/pseuds/VeritySilvers
Summary: This is my response for the Perc’ahlia Festival of Happiness - the prompt was "shameless indulgences".  Originally posted on Tumblr.-Florian’s False Field is a practice range six miles outside of Emon: five miles northeast, and one mile more or less directly down.  Admittance to the range grants a patron access to four open ranges of various terrain and difficulty, two maintained practice lanes, the services of a practiced wizard capable of creating illusory targets and challenges, and six hours of utter discretion.
  As such, admittance comes at the steep price of 1000 gold per person, limiting attendance at Florian’s False Field to those of means.  
  Percy and Vex spend a day at Florian’s together every four weeks, like clockwork.





	

Florian’s False Field is a practice range six miles outside of Emon: five miles northeast, and one mile more or less directly down.  Admittance to the range grants a patron access to four open ranges of various terrain and difficulty, two maintained practice lanes, the services of a practiced wizard capable of creating illusory targets and challenges, and six hours of utter discretion.

As such, admittance comes at the steep price of 1000 gold per person, limiting attendance at Florian’s False Field to those of means.  

Percy and Vex spend a day at Florian’s together every four weeks, like clockwork.  

It represents a significant personal expense for each of them.  Some months, if they’ve been successful, Vex presents the money with a flourish and a smug smile; other months, when times are harder and the coin is dearer, she pays their way with a somber expression that is nearly a wince.  But there’s no question of skipping their traditional practice day: if they are in Emon and they have the time, then the coin is spent without a word of complaint.

They don’t talk much on the way to Florian’s, which usually involves a lengthy walk and a very uncomfortable descent in a mine-cart pulled on rails into the tunnels beneath the city.  It’s unnerving to descend into torch-lit darkness, to watch the tunnel walls smooth into beautiful carvings and ancient hallways as their cart carries them deeper into the ruins of lost civilizations.

They are treated with utter respect at Florian’s, which only partially justifies the expense of it all.  And though it had taken some doing, Florian’s small staff are now used to the way they operate: Percy’s guns and Vex’s arrows.  They adapt when their two patrons demand difficult challenges, and though the flying broom had been a bit of a sore point between them, everything they request is carefully and precisely delivered.

For six hours at a time, Percy and Vex can practice together in the half-crumbled ruins of an ancient amphitheater, a mile underground and hidden far away from prying eyes.  

It is, in many ways, simply a practical exercise.  They are the only two ranged combatants in Vox Machina, and their time practicing their aim and their skill is as important as Pike’s time in the practice ring or Keyleth’s time with her books.   Percy is still learning his guns for all he has created and relied upon them, and for as natural Vex as is with a bow in her hand, there’s always room for improvement.

Their styles differ, beyond even their choice of weapons.  Percy is precise, face cold and eyes focused behind his glasses: he goes for the difficult shots, picking targets out from behind cover, using pinpoint accuracy to choose exactly where on his target he wants to hit.  Vex isn’t so calculated.  She’s too practical to go for the long shot, the deliberate and delicate aiming where Percy excels.  Instead she goes for simply speed and accuracy, and arrows rain from her bow as she mows through targets.

Still, despite the stark difference between their approach, there is a certain elegance to each of them.  There’s strength behind how easily Percy can lift heavy guns, and a sort of wiry, unexpected speed in how he can whirl to face a newly-exposed target.  There’s odd confidence in how his slender scarred fingers can quickly and competently load new bullets without fumbling under pressure.  Vex flows, all form and dexterity: her fingers are calloused from bow-strings and her arms strong with the muscles required to draw the arrow back against the bow’s pull.  There’s beauty in the confident way she reaches for her next arrow, and something graceful in the way she nocks an arrow against the bowstring.  

They are more alike than different when they practice here, and they stick side-by-side as they move through Florian’s ranges.  There’s a glint to Percy’s eyes - not entirely kind - when he makes a difficult shot; that same light is reflected a bit more purely in how Vex’s eyes shine with success.  Her grin is saucy, delighted and self-assured, when she nails each of her targets; his smile is darker, a twist of satisfaction to his mouth that could be wry in one light or sardonic in another.  

Florian’s offers instructors: mentors and coaches and guides to tutor those who deal death from afar.  Neither Vex nor Percy invite them into their practice sessions, because they trust each other more than they trust an outside eye.

“You’re dropping your elbow,” Percy tells Vex as her arms sing with exhaustion near the end of their sessions.  

“You’re pulling a hair left,” she tells him in return when he attempts to check his sights.

They take the time to warm up in Florian’s, to look over their weapons and to stretch out muscles.  They practice here, in deadly earnest: Vex learns to shoot from aloft on her broom, and Percy learns the range and damage of his newest gun.  They drill together, and learn how best to work together and apart in Florian’s open ranges.

Vox Machina benefits from these sessions.  There is no doubt in anyone’s mind as to that.  It is because of their time in Florian’s that Vex knows how long it takes - to the second - for Percy to reload his guns, so that she can time her own need for arrows against when he will be firing again.  It is because of their training here that Percy knows exactly how far his guns will fire, how quickly, how loudly.  Vex knows how many arrows she can shoot at once, and how to keep them nocked and ready, and how her release of a single arrow can be faster than the retort of one of Percy’s guns if they’re both waiting for a target to appear.

They learn to work together here: Vex’s silent arrows and Percy’s louder gunshots, his precise pinpoint accuracy and her pragmatic quick damage.

It is in Florian’s that Percy hedges his bets and teaches Vex how to hold each of his guns.  He doesn’t want her to ever have to use them, but he is cynical enough that he understands the necessity of it.  He teaches her to fire them, to aim and adjust for their weight and to expect the kick of the backfire.  

He doesn’t teach her to clean them, to care for them and build them, because those are not burdens he wants for her to bear.  His guns are his, terribly and completely, and he does not want to make her slender shoulders curve under the weight of them.  But he teaches her to use his guns, so that should a disaster occur she won’t be helpless.

She teaches him archery in return, mostly because she doesn’t like when his eyes become shuttered and strained and teaching her how to handle his guns is difficult for him.  She’s better with his guns than he is with her bow: different muscles strain and different adjustments are made, and in any case, he’d reach for a sword or dagger before he’d reach for a bow.

Still, it might save their lives someday, and so they train together at Florian’s and shoulder the cost of the sessions without complaint.

“Florian’s?” Scanlan asks, genuinely surprised when he finds out where they’re heading.  "Really?  Vex, you know that Jessup’s range is a quarter of that price.“

"Florian’s is worth the extra,” she says firmly, checking her bracers and glancing at Percy.  "It’s the best facility.“

"And they are very professional there,” Percy agrees with her, shouldering Bad News.    


Scanlan eyes the wrapped gun with concern.  "I really didn’t think you wanted to let news of your guns spread,“ he says, and then frowns again.  "Are you sure -”

“They’re very discreet,” Vex says.  "And it’s not as though we go there and present ourselves by our real names,“ Vex laughs.  "Can you imagine?  Vex'ahlia of Vox Machina, and -”

Percy huffs a sigh that doesn’t quite disguise a grin as he recites his full name.  "Have some faith,“ he tells Scanlan.  "We’re not idiots.”

“Most of the time,” the gnome mutters, and shakes his head.  "Fine, fine, if you want to waste your money on some prissy fancy firing range, that’s your call.“

"It is,” Vex confirms, and glances at Percy.  "And if we don’t leave soon, we’ll be late.“

"Can’t have that,” he says, and they set off.

The real reason, perhaps, that both are so set on returning to Florian’s is a small one.  It’s hardly worth mentioning, really, and because of that, neither so much as comment on it.  In any case, it’s just a part of the disguise they each don as they approach the mine-carts leading down to the range, as simple as the charcoal Percy rubs into his hair and the paint Vex dots her cheeks with to give the impression of freckles.

“Ah, Lord and Lady de Smit,” the uniformed valet at the top of the mine-tracks greets them, with the familiarity and deference of a retired butler.  "Another day at Florian’s already?“  

They might be married, inside the walls of Florian’s, but if they are, it’s certainly not the only reason they so religiously keep their appointments there.  

The fact that their cover story allows Vex to call Percy "darling” every time she addresses him surely is simply an afterthought to the real purpose of their training.  

Percy’s careful courtesies - a hand on hers to help her into the cart, fingers at the small of her back to guide her as they reach the front desk, hands at her waist to help lift her into position on her broom - are of course only present to keep up their cover.

The quick and casual kiss they share before beginning - “for luck” - is obviously only for the bored eyes of the staff, and not because there are other things they cannot say to each other.

The way they sit together in the mine-cart on the way back up to the surface, leaning against each other and quiet, is purely because they are pretending to be married and not because they enjoy pressing their bodies together for other reasons.  

The reason both are so adamant that Florian’s is the only range that will do for their practice is obviously because both value the challenges and discretion that they find there, and not in the least because for six hours every four weeks they can pretend to be what they wish they were.


End file.
